Young Writers Society

Eleganz says...

thanks!

first: she's in a holding cell, not in jail, and the police don't really care enough to make her strip down and change into something else. in fact, it's kind of fun to watch her squirm and freeze in her skimpy dress and uncomfortable shoes -- from their point of view, they've just taken in a deranged criminal and she deserves as much discomfort as possible. and her shoes aren't sharp, per se, they just have a heel instead of being flats.

second: her life wasn't really that comfortable, which i make clear when i mention what the watch meant to her: it would mean no working for a year. Della wants happiness and comfort, and the easiest way to gain that would be by selling that watch to her buyer for enough money to pay all her bills for at least a year.

three: the walls of the cell are solid. also, it's underground.

thank you again, have a great day!

Eleganz says...

thank you!

on the title at the beginning of the chapter, i've had a lot of people become confused when it comes to other works on other sites. 'is that the title of the chapter or a subtitle for the work?' it's more obvious here because these chapters are very short as far as my usual chapter length goes, but i still felt it would be nice to clarify which was the title of the work and which the chapter.

as for the single quotes, that's my personal choice for this narrative -- normally i would use italics and double quotes, but they felt clunky for Della's narrative voice. i do alter my grammatical style based on the narrative style, so that's kind of my thing. call it a form of poetry if you want.

besides, the single quotes still set the flashback dialog apart from current dialog, which uses the double quote style, so idk but imo it works. if anyone else weighs in on it i might take it into consideration and look into finding another style that works.

'dancing' - as far as that goes, that's my attempt to keep Della as family-friendly as can be. she's an educated ballroom and cabaret dancer who works as an escort for businessmen, either on dates or other affairs. it pays her bills -- barely -- but she doesn't like it, thus why she turned to grave-robbing in her spare time.

basically, she's a social prostitute, i just don't want to spell that out in the story because i'd have to spend chapters going into her background and lifestyle and yada yada yada -- this isn't about that.

as far as Underside and Topside go, they're actually two sides of the same city. so in New Exeter you have the Underside that's a layer below the Topside face of the city. the Underside is kind of similar to slums, hard places of the city, places where undesirable people are sent or kept to be out of the way of the rich and the innocent middle class; it has a lot of conflict, drugs, seekers of riches who aren't the most pure about it. the Topside is a lot safer and more comfortable.

as far as how this works -- they are physically under/over each other. so the Underside is actually set into the ground of a basin, some of it underground in the hills and mountains, and built up on the sides of the hills -- and on platforms about a quarter-mile over the Underside -- are the high-rises, shopping malls and business centers of the Topside.

there's a lot of other stuff i can't wait to get into!! i'm so glad you liked this, i'm looking forward to updating it again soon!

zaminami says...

Oooooooooh.... I did that too. I took a work from Google Docs and posted it on here too. I totally feel you. I just deleted the title

Oh okay. I don't do quotes and flashbacks like that. I just go big or go home.

Well yeah, for the prostitute thing, I thought as much from the tone of writing.

Now I understand about the Underside and Topside thing but I still was confused about the name

Your welcome! --Kara